


Homecomings

by thesecretdetectivecollection



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, Liverpool fc - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 17:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8762134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecretdetectivecollection/pseuds/thesecretdetectivecollection
Summary: Once the new Main Stand opens, the stadium feels different, somehow. It always takes a goal for it to feel like home. Roberto Firmino's thoughts on scoring the first goal in the Anfield that feels new.





	

  * It always takes one goal before it feels like home.
  * The air is always tense, full of expectation. The fans shouting and cheering and singing feels heavy, at first.
  * It feels like _don’t disappoint us_.
  * It feels like _we saved up weeks for these tickets_.
  * It feels like _this is my daughter’s first game, she’s been buzzing about it for weeks._
  * It feels like _this is my son—you’re his favorite_.
  * It feels like _we paid forty million pounds for you, why can’t you deliver?_
  * It feels like a warning, almost.
  * There are a lot of secrets that footballers keep—which teammate is gay but terrified of coming out, which teammate is having trouble with his wife, and which is cheating on his girlfriend, which manager is a maniac and which a megalomaniac, and which is a stubborn idiot, and which is just an idiot.
  * One of the secrets no one talks about is this: It always takes one goal before it feels like home.
  * There’s a reason nobody talks about it—they think they’re the only ones, they’ve no one to talk about it with—who are they going to ask, their teammates, who’ve been here for years and wouldn’t understand the heaviness of the songs fans sing? Coming to a new club, a new team, is always difficult. At first, there’s always a time of caution, of trying to be your best self. And best selves aren’t afraid, and they aren’t weak, and they don’t talk about the way the air feels heavy, like a shower full of steam. They don’t talk about the way they can feel it sliding into their lungs.
  * And by the way? They’re practically sending infants to media training these days, teenagers fumbling over their words and trying to deflect criticism and praise equally, feeding all these kids the same lines about contributing to the team, working for the team, how the fans lift them up, how they’ve settled in almost preternaturally quickly, how the city feels just like home, now, really.
  * It’s easy to fit in, it’s bad to stand out, is the rule when it comes to the media. And the media here are _crazy_ , your teammates tell you, ravenous for some sound-bite to twist and manipulate and play on loop for the next six months. So you don’t tell the media, either.
  * Nobody ever says that it’s hard. Nobody ever says that some days they go home and throw their boots on the floor and their bodies on the sofa and wonder why they signed those goddamn papers.
  * Training is different. Training is _fun_ , making careful jokes that aren’t too harsh, testing the waters to see whose sense of humor is filthy and whose is childish, figuring out where the lines are. Training is learning to feel how your teammates like to move, like to pass, like to dribble and turn and find you just _so_. Besides the kids standing on trash bins outside the fence, training means nobody’s watching. There are no cameras.
  * So if you go into that tackle hard, both feet off the ground, or studs showing and a bit late, you won’t be sent off. You won’t cost your team three points. You won’t sit in the dressing room, showered and dressed a full hour before your teammates, who put their hands on your shoulder, but can’t find it in themselves to make eye contact.
  * That’s why it’s best to get it quickly, in the first few games after your debut.
  * But this, this is an odd situation, because it’s almost like everyone’s debuting all at once. It’s still home, but it’s not, like someone’s come in and changed the furniture while you were out on holiday. And it’s bigger. It feels like a different stadium, because it is a different stadium.



You signed three years ago. You’ve scored well over a dozen goals since there. The fans love you.

 

Still, the air is heavy. Still, it feels like _don’t disappoint us, don’t disappoint us, don’t disappoint us._

 

You don’t. You score, and it’s brilliant, and there are teammates at your front, teammates on your back, and at your sides, and Lucas is pressing affectionate kisses to your neck.

 

( _Maybe this feels a bit like a debut for him, too_ , you consider distractedly. This is an important thought… important, important… But then your captain’s arms are around you, and there are words of congratulations and there’s a little boy in the front row, sat next to his dad, and he’s looking at you with his big, adoring blue eyes, like you’re a miracle made especially for him, like you’re the best thing he’s ever laid his beautiful little eyes on, and the thought just… slips away…).

 

And in that moment, that one shining moment of clarity, where all you have of this world is what your senses give you, distorted by the adrenaline pumping through your veins, the air _changes_. It lightens. You run faster. The songs are the same, surely, but they sound faster, more upbeat, more cheerful, more supportive, more full of belief and hope and love.

 

And it’s not Brazil, and it’s not Hoffenheim. But it does feel like home, like a ship returned from a long voyage away. There are other beautiful ports, you’re sure, other beautiful stadiums and strange, wondrous cities, but there are none with the soft, sweet beauty of this home, bathed in red, the color of passion, the color of the blood in your veins, the color of the shirt on your back.

 

Homecomings had always been sweeter than other days, you think to yourself, satisfied.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little snippet I wrote a few months ago, right after the first home match in Anfield with the new stand.


End file.
